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Wheelings & Dealings: CloudFlare Acquires Cryptoseal

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June 19, 2014

By David Delony
Contributing Writer

The Internet security company CloudFlare has announced that it has acquired Cryptoseal, a personal VPN service.

“At CloudFlare, our mission is to build a better Internet. Today, we provide a best-in-class service to ensure that our customers' websites and services are fast, safe, and reliable,” CloudFlare CEO Matthew Prince said in a official company blog post announcing the deal.

CloudFlare’s network of 26 data centers around the world functions as a reverse proxy, filtering malicious requests while letting through legitimate traffic. Prince said that CryptoSeal’s network was essentially CloudFlare in reverse. CryptoSeal offered VPN as a service to Web users rather than servers.

Prince also cited the company’s use of trusted computing in its VPN as a service offering as one of the reasons that CloudFlare made the acquisition.

“I’m really excited to work with CloudFlare to bring secure, easy-to-use networking to a huge number of sites and users,” Ryan Lackey, CryptoSeal founder and CEO said in the blog post. “CloudFlare really is the perfect company to deploy security technologies like Trusted Computing, robust cryptography, and secure networks to make the Internet a better place.”

CryptoSeal’s service will be shut down at the end of the month, and the company’s current customers have been notified. A message on CryptoSeal’s website simply points to the blog post announcing the CloudFlare acquisition.

The financial terms of the deal were not disclosed, but CryptoSeal had already raised money from Y Combinator and had already taken $50 million in Series C funding late last year according to securitycurrent.

CloudFlare has fielded a number of DDoS attacks recently, and the company could use all of the help it can get. CryptoSeal has 30 data centers itself, but it’s not sure what will happen to them as its service winds down. The company’s use of trusted computing could give it an edge against these attacks, but there are always ways to get around security procedures for those determined enough to do so.